It's not often that I read something from either The Verge or Polygon and go, "wow, that is a fantastic piece of writing and I would like to share that with my readers!" Today is an exception brought on not only by necessity, not only due to the words of Frank Cifaldi, but because it's the right thing to do.

Back in August I put up a blog entry that, looking back on it now, completely misses the point as to what was going on. I had missed the points that Leigh Alexander was making in her "Gamers Are Over" article and my gut reaction took that notion to just be a bit preposterous. Fortunately, I managed to reel in my initial instinct and see how it played out with the larger audiences of the world.

I tried to remain neutral as people began to take "sides" in this "us vs. them" battle between "gamers" that felt threatened by people taking away the only thing in life they seemingly clung to, and those evil people who were seemingly wanting to forever change the game industry and take it away from "gamers."

The problem is, that was never what it was about.

#GamerGate was born out of a desire to harm others. Specifically, it was born from people wanting to drive women out of the industry and people that GamerGaters call "Social Justice Warriors," or SJW for short. That has now become synonymous with people that are simply looking for equality in the game industry for all genders, races, and ages be they in-game representations or real world faces in the industry itself. It had its start when Adam Baldwin used it when Tweeting about the Zoe Quinn and her personal life with various game journalists.

The line being publicly towed by GamerGate supporters is that they are merely fighting for journalistic integrity. A shame that they have yet to actually do anything of the sort.

Instead, they have attacked, sometimes viciously, those that they feel threatened by. They have driven numerous people, namely women, completely out of the game industry thanks to harassment, threats, and misogynistic behaviors. It's not just limited to online either, people have called the personal phone numbers of many of these game industry people. They have called the friends and family of these industry people. They have taken photos outside of their places of business.

Lately, they have taken to mass emailing various advertisers in order to get them to pull their ads from showing on sites like Gamasutra and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. The reason? Journalistic integrity. Gamasutra was the target because they were the ones who originally posted Alexander's article in the first place. These sites are being targeted because GamerGate does not agree with what they say. Chances are, if you make public an article promoting equality and diversity for games or the game industry, you are likely going to receive some form of harassment.

GamerGate is a hate mob. They want nothing more than to ruin people's lives under false pretenses that countless fall for day in and day out. People are still under the belief that the actions being carried out by GamerGate are just and that it's only to bring integrity to what is apparently a land where every game journalist is corrupt and impartial.

Stop.

Stop believing that anything GamerGate does is being done for the greater good. It's not. What good comes from driving women out of the industry? What good comes from stifling a push for diversity or fairness? What good comes from calling up a stranger and threatening their lives or insulting them or making them so afraid to where they don't even feel safe in their own home? There are people who have made half hour to over hour long rants about some women in the industry with a multitude of conspiracy theories that would make even the Illuminati blush, all in the name of #GamerGate. That's borderline psychotic behavior.

GamerGate constantly seeks some sort of approval from people like Adam Baldwin on a regular basis. He and others like Milo Yiannopoulos and Christina Hoff Sommers are just stoking the coals of this whole ordeal and are validating the heinous actions of those who support GamerGate.

Keep in mind that Baldwin is the same person who posted this just a few days ago.


Yet he remains as a pillar of the GamerGate movement. Yiannopoulos, despite admitting that he never played a game up until a few weeks ago, has been pushing the GamerGate agenda incredibly hard. This is the same man that in September called people who play games the "yellow underpants brigade - teens and man-children addicted to these immersive video games." Why the change of heart? He's pandering to his new found audience and is benefiting greatly through increased hits and an influx of ad revenues to every GamerGate piece he writes. He's forgiven for what he said from most GamerGate supporters. Leigh Alexander is not forgiven for when she apologized for things she said in the past. The difference? Milo is male, Leigh is not. Milo is telling the GamerGate people what they want to hear. Leigh has said what they should be hearing.

Then there is Christina Hoff Sommers, a woman that says she is an "equality feminist" while coming off as largely anti-feminist. Needless to say, GamerGate has latched onto her something fierce. They've even taken to calling her "Mom." Interestingly, it seems that in some feminist theories, there are only two ways misogynists see women: Mothers or whores.

I admit I made a mistake back in August with that original blog post. Having had time now to see a more complete picture, it's clear that there is a very valid point behind Alexander's article. It honestly wasn't until Zoe Quinn made public the level of misogyny going on at the heart of GamerGate that I saw what was going on, got off the fence, and formed my opinion and belief that GamerGate is a hate mob. It was at that point where I could clearly see that it was born from ill intent and that there is no way that any rational, decent human being should support it.

That brings me back to my original thoughts concerning a recent article from The Verge. Today, they wrote that you should Stop Supporting GamerGate. I will select a few selections from their article that echo a bit of what I said above and perhaps provide a bit more context in other cases.

The militants of Gamergate claim they are the vanguard of ethical games journalism in order to justify their harassment. They have established no credibility as such, but maintain the titillating promise to "expose" corrupt game journalists with memes, sock-puppet trolls, and the kind of internet detective work that caught the wrong Boston bomber.
"Some gamers would like it both ways: they want everyone to take their medium seriously, but they don’t want anyone to challenge their political assumptions or call into question the way gamers treat people who don’t look and think like them," Peter Frase wrote. "They hate and fear a world where games are truly made by and for everyone."
What gives Gamergate power and momentum is its extremist conservative obstinacy; it is a reactionary movement against progressive voices that hoodwinks typically apolitical game players by convincing them of some harm that doesn’t actually exist, like they are losing their right to free speech, or their hobby is being killed by an anti-gamer conspiracy. Once you’ve insinuated something like that, whether or not it’s true, it’s easy to get a lot of people on your side.
The next paragraph explain a bit more in detail on why it's a farce that people like Yiannopoulos and Sommers are being hailed as champions for the GamerGate cause:

Gamergate’s patriarchal sway has allowed charlatans like Milo Yiannopoulos to become one of its preeminent champions. Yiannopoulos, who routinely writes misogynistic, transphobic, and other bigoted rants for Breitbart, would never be exalted in any forum lacking an undercurrent of right-wing sympathies. Even the American Enterprise Institute has chimed in, arguing that the issue of sexism and misogyny in video games is a fake issue created by "feminist tech writers" and "concernocrats." AEI’s involvement has been led by Christina Hoff Summers, who cares very little about video games but an awful lot about the alleged War On Men, which ranks somewhere near the War On Christmas on the list of things adults ought to take seriously. Nevertheless, she’s been anointed by Gamergate fanatics as a truth-teller for her views on male persecution, ditto other reactionaries like YouTube personality "Thunderf00t" who has published videos such as "Do hot girls have all the advantages?" and "Why feminism poisons EVERYTHING."
In short, Gamergate is a boggling witch hunt that continues to raise more questions than it answers because it didn’t have any useful questions to ask in the first place. Even Gamergate’s founding claim, that games journalism is corrupt, is opportunistic horseshit from misogynists who decided to shame a woman for allegedly sleeping around because they didn’t like her video game and wanted to punish her for it.
Gamergate is now a self-sustaining machine because it is fueled by right-wing rage and deception, existing now only to defend itself against criticism of "gamers." It’s not really accurate to call Gamergate’s militants "gamers" because, as Leigh Alexander rightly observed, gamer is basically a meaningless term that could describe basically any modern consumer.
The author of the article, T.C. Sottek finishes with what is perhaps the most sensible two sentences I've seen in quite some time.

The internet and video games are incredible because they can allow everyone to participate — and everyone to feel safe. Gamers are dead because we're all gamers now. So let's protect each other.
Stop supporting GamerGate. Realize the actual harm it's causing, and that there is no just reason to support such abhorrent behavior.